In case you missed it yesterday, big news broke that Amazon purchased Twitch for a lofty $970 million dollars in cash. Yes, Amazon, not Google. It seems Twitch had many suitors and even though the rumored Google deal was all but done, it seems that Amazon swooped in at the last minute to snatch them away at the last minute. Part of me can see the executives at Google flipping tables over this news.

What’s interesting with this deal is that Twitch basically remains as they were before. They keep their independence, brand, employees, office, basically everything. And no, the recent audio policy changes was not due to Twitch. Things may change down the road, but for now, everything is the same as it was last week. It’s almost like Amazon purchased the company to get a cut of the profits and that’s it. What has been confirmed is that Twitch will gain access to better hardware and infrastructure so you may see things improve from a connectivity standpoint. It’ll be interesting to see how this relationship plays out over the years. If you want to get the scoop from Twitch CEO Emmett Shear, head over to the Twitch blog for more.

So what happened with Google? Well, rumors are speculating that Google backed out of the deal over antitrust concerns considering that they already own YouTube. Some may have seen the two services as being too similar creating a legal headache that Google just didn’t want to risk. Google has been no stranger to antitrust complaints here in the US and in Europe which apparently was enough to cause them to walk away.

So how do you guys feel? Is this a better deal than the one with Google or are you still worried about the future of the platform? Let me know in the comments.

3 Responses to Amazon Scoops Up Twitch For A Cool $970 Million

It’s interesting to see something like Twitch get bought just for the sole purpose of getting some of the profit. Usually the buyer think they know better and big changes are made. Nice to see that the platform will remain as-is, for now at least.